Age of Empires III
October 23,2005 - Paying homage to the past is quite different from desperately clinging to it. Embracing a formula is not the same as relying on it. Novelty is meaningless when the core purpose is betrayed. And so we have Ensemble’s Age of Empires III, the eagerly anticipated entry in the vaunted series, and a bland addition to a genre loaded with superior products. We don’t mind that AOEIII uses standard RTS conventions, and on paper, numerous original touches would make for a fresh take on the familiar gameplay. However, those novelties were added at the expense of basic strategy game elements we’ve rightfully grown to expect, and the result is fresh around the edges but musty and threadbare at heart. The struggle to balance the new with the old results in a somewhat decent RTS whose innovations add no true compensating benefits for some baffling design failures.

A little history in your historical strategy goes a long way though, and to its credit, AOEIII features the most fascinating story yet in the series, following several generations in their journey to the New World from the Continent, and to their expansion there. The main characters aren't all that vibrant, but the relationships they develop with Native Americans, as well as the compelling fountain of youth mythology, make the narrative the dominant reason to finish the single-player campaign. Those characters are explorer units: heroes with a high hit-point count and a special ability to boot. Sadly, the gameplay that drives those heroes is nothing to write home about, and at times, you may echo your heroes' defeat cry: “every moment I live is agony.”

Those defeats are agonizing by nature, for your explorers don't resurrect at your base—they resurrect from where they fall. While this may be intended to add a new degree of strategy, in practice it means that if your hero is killed and you don't have enough units to protect him, he will continually resurrect in the midst of your enemies, only to fall again. Over and over, ad nauseum, until the cry of his agony becomes your own. The special ability they bring to the table aren't all that spectacular anyway (sharpshooting, area-of-attack sword slash), so they end up being good scouts, if little else. Aside from driving the single-player story and serving as treasure retrievers, we have little appreciation for the implementation, particularly in multiplayer skirmishes, where a true hero unit could have provided panache to the by-the-numbers supremacy matches.

You will spend each scenario progressing from age to age, which provides upgrades to your units and buildings, as well as letting you choose a bonus, a la Age of Mythology. Treasures scattered around the maps add units, enhancements, resources, or experience points to your haul in a Warcraft 3-brand “creep,” although your explorer's limitations keep you from wandering too far until you have a few units with you, since each treasure is protected by a guardian or three. This brings us, however, to Age of Empires III's most appealing element: the card deck. Not only is it the most addicting and fun ingredient of the game, it is what keeps Ensemble’s title from dropping into utter mediocrity.

As you play, you will generate experience in a number of ways: battle defeats, resource gathering, or by establishing trade routes. In the case of skirmish games, you have limited cards from which to choose for your deck until you accumulate more and more overall experience, which is then spent on more cards for your deck. Purchasing a card during your match will order a shipment described on your card from your home city. Some enhance your economy by giving you free resources, while others upgrade or add units, and while you are limited to twenty cards per deck, there's plenty of freedom to conform them to your style of play. In the campaign, you will build a single deck, although you can have multiple decks for multiplayer use. The more you play skirmishes and accrue XP, the more cards you have at your disposal. Experience also earns you upgrades to your home city, which is viewable from the menu and card deck screens. The enhancements range from changing building color, to adding strolling musicians or nobility, to adding patriotic banners to the balconies. These purchases are purely cosmetic, but fun to tool with nevertheless.

Once you move from the conceptual to reality, however, you will discover blandness around every corner. The road to success is the same road we traveled in every late-90's RTS, and the race to the finish is driven by how much food, wood, and gold you can collect in the fastest amount of time. Build up your city, create villagers and maintain your advancements, and then form the biggest army that you can. Not that most strategy titles don't adhere to this formula in one manner or another, but considering the creative deck framework, it's disappointing that the driving force of the match has nothing new to offer. To add insult to injury, the reliance on a blueprint close to a decade old is accented by much-vaunted production values that flounder, as it seems Ensemble wasn't sure what to do with them. 

Challenge number one: the interface. It is now the twenty-first century, so forgive us for insisting upon a HUD that does not take up the entire bottom quarter of our screen. The interface can be toned down with some menu options, but not only do you have to enable the option in the menus, but the thinner HUD provides limited feedback. Not only are we of the firm opinion that default options should be the most efficient, but we would point Ensemble to any given tactical title from Relic, Creative Assembly, or Blizzard. An interface can offer a wealth of feedback without being an enormous rectangular eyesore.

Challenge number two: unit speed and behavior. Age of Empires III's control groups handily arrange themselves into formations automatically, but once in formation, they only move as fast as the slowest unit in the group. Watching your cavalry inch forward in a slow-motion gallop is one of the more unintentionally humorous unit animations in recent years, and changing the option for any of the group's artillery units to move more quickly (at the expense of your attack) does little to alleviate the issue. Sending your units move into formation is also a hoot, since they will stutter against each other in a bullet-time ballet of inept pathfinding.

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